“The listing of Softbank Corp. shares is one such option, but no decision has been made to officially proceed with this course”.

According to the Nikkei, the share sale could rival that of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone in 1987.

Investing in growth

Softbank would use the proceeds to invest in growth, such as buying into foreign information-technology companies, the Nikkei said.

The Japanese telecommunications giant is one of the world’s biggest technology companies and is run by its founder, Japanese entrepreneur Masayoshi Son.

Softbank has made a series of high-profile tech investments and shown an appetite for investments in ride-sharing, backing China’s Didi Chuxing and Southeast Asian taxi-hailing app Grab, among other companies.

The firm is also set to take a large stake in Uber, expanding its holdings in transportation companies around the world.

It previously acquired Vodafone’s Japanese operations and the US telecoms company Sprint.